Green groups and industry warn axing of Moonlight Range Wind Farm project risks undermining confidence in renewables
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The Liberal National party’s axing of a conditionally approved windfarm that could have powered hundreds of thousands of homes risks undermining confidence in the renewable energy sector in Queensland, green and industry groups have warned.
Planned for a site 40km north-west of Rockhampton, Greenleaf Renewables’ $1bn Moonlight Range Wind Farm Project would have been able to power about 260,000 homes, using 88 260-metre turbines. It also included a grid-scale battery.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/26/2025 - 02:41
05/26/2025 - 01:48
Crisafulli government’s $88m plan for more shark nets and baited drum lines at popular beaches may fall foul of federal laws
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The expansion of Queensland’s lethal shark control program will be challenged in court should it escape a looming entanglement with federal laws, according to marine scientists and policy experts.
The Queensland government announced plans to pump $88m over four years into the state’s shark management plan, which would see shark nets and baited drum lines rolled out at more beaches, as well as the expanded use of non-lethal technology such as drone surveillance.
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05/26/2025 - 00:00
A groundbreaking tree-planting programme is uniting farmers and rewilders, as portions of common ground in the Yorkshire Dales national park are being restored to their ancient glory
Photographs by Rebecca Cole
The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost “ghost woodlands”.
Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted by the project
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05/25/2025 - 19:36
Shane Jones is unapologetic about his plan to double mineral exports to $3bn over the next decade despite criticism over potential environmental impacts
New Zealand’s minister for resources, Shane Jones, said he will not be guilt-tripped by “apocalyptic images” of mining and its effects on the environment put forward by his critics, as he embarks on a major mining push.
Jones, a member of the minor populist coalition party New Zealand First, wants to double mineral exports to $3bn over the next decade, to boost economic growth and minimise the country’s reliance on imported resources, even if it results in environmental trade-offs.
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05/25/2025 - 10:55
Stark warnings about threatened coastal areas should prompt fresh efforts to protect those most at risk
In his classic study of the 17th-century Dutch golden age, The Embarrassment of Riches, the art historian Simon Schama showed how the biblical story of Noah’s ark resonated in a culture where catastrophic floods were an ever-present threat. The history of the Netherlands includes multiple instances of storms breaching dikes, leading to disastrous losses of life and land. These traumatic episodes were reflected in the country’s art and literature, as well as its engineering.
In countries where floods are less of a danger, memories tend to be more localised: a mark on a wall showing how high waters rose when a town’s river flooded; a seaside garden such as the one in Felixstowe, Suffolk, to commemorate the night in 1953 when 41 people lost their lives there.
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05/25/2025 - 10:00
Like many in the region, the third-generation farmer is burying his dead stock. He says he is at ‘breaking point’
Warning: this story contains images of dead animals
Australia news live: latest politics updates
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When the water began to rise on Kevin Schlenert’s farm in Glenthorne near Taree, eventually submerging every inch of it, he took shelter on a raised mattress in his bedroom. But as he waited for help, fearing the worst, some of his cattle had the same idea.
“I had a heifer come into the bedroom,” Schlenert says.
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05/22/2025 - 04:30
The TV naturalist’s comments come after a Guardian investigation into the complex supply chain behind the fish on sale on Britain’s high streets
Read more: The hidden cost of your supermarket sea bass
Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham has condemned British supermarkets for a “dereliction of duty” over food labelling and sourcing, as a joint investigation by the Guardian and environmental website DeSmog reveals that the retailers are selling fish from farms that import large quantities of fishmeal from Africa.
Factories in Senegal grind down small, edible fish into meal that is then sold on to fish farms in Turkey, fuelling unemployment and food insecurity in the African country.
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05/21/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 22 May 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00124-7
The Ocean is central to our lives, providing vital ecosystem goods and services. It generates 50% of the Earth’s oxygen; absorbs around 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions; regulates the Earth’s climate; and provides food, income, and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. However, the Ocean is under serious multiple threats from overexploitation, climate change, and pollution. Here, I state my dream 2050 scenario for the Ocean and describe how trade, in the midst of broader ocean governance efforts, can contribute to realizing this dream.
05/20/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 21 May 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00129-2
The opportunity for climate action through climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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